Even if they want to leave a relationship and family home where they are experiencing domestic abuse, women often face the worst of choices: leave – but potentially without a safe place to escape to – or continue to stay with their perpetrator and continue living in a dangerous and frightening environment. That’s one of the reasons why the Women in Safe Homes fund was created – to provide women with a safe home to live in and to receive specialist support to help them on their recovery from their experiences.

The fund has partnered with nine organisations across the UK to house women who desperately need a safe place to call home and to provide them with support. One of its partners is Cyrenians, in Scotland, an Edinburgh-based charity that aims to tackle the causes and consequences of homelessness.

The fund is buying 30 properties for Cyrenians in Edinburgh – a mix of family homes and one-bed properties – and to house around 200 women and children over its lifetime. So far, 29 of the 30 properties have been purchased, ten have been handed over to Cyrenians and are now housing women and their children, and the remaining properties are in refurbishment.

Hana is one of Cyrenians’ tenants, living in Edinburgh with her two children.

To escape the domestic abuse she was experiencing, Hana needed a place of safety to go to. She was initially provided with emergency accommodation in a mixed-gender shelter, but this was a challenging and stressful environment for her and her children – living in just the one room - before being moved into her new home with Cyrenians.

“I grew up overseas. I came to Scotland because my ex-partner is Scottish. We have come from the Borders, but due to experiencing domestic abuse, I had to leave my home and stay in a homeless shelter in Edinburgh for about 3 months. Now I am living in supported housing provided by Cyrenians with my daughters.

“The shelter we were staying was not only for women and children, so I felt very nervous while we were there. We often overheard people shouting at each other, and using the communal kitchen was scary for me because it often meant I had to be in a closed space with many men. The managers in the facility were nice but the accommodation wasn’t appropriate for a young family – our room had a very bad smell all the time and the toilet was foul. Also, the building next door belonging to the same shelter organization was a rehab facility for drug dependent people, which meant that the police came quite often and there were often incidents with residents. I appreciate all the support at the time, but honestly the place was unsuitable to stay with young kids.”

Thankfully, Hana was referred to Cyrenians and was quickly moved into her new home with her daughters:

“The new house we were offered by Cyrenians is totally different from the shelter. It’s really clean, safe, and everything has been well cared for. When I was in the shelter, I often felt like I’d done something wrong and that I must have no worth to be living here, but now I really feel that I am supported by people not only materially but also mentally.”

I couldn’t have expected such a peaceful life.

While we were in the shelter, I was always worried about the children’s education and keeping them engaged at school despite their difficult situation at home. But now we’ve been given a great environment and they’ve been going to a new school. We are so much less isolated from society now.

Now we’ve got a chance to feel happiness and laugh – and even think about a happy future.

It would be almost impossible for me to manage my kids any longer in the shelter because there was only one room, and we didn’t have any chance to get into the community in the local area. I couldn’t do it any longer.”

Hana explains how her new home is providing her and her children with a stable foundation enabling them to start rebuilding their lives:

“Having a stable home has given me back human dignity. When we were in the shelter, I constantly felt like I had done something wrong and that I should be ashamed of myself. Also, it was really difficult for me to explain to my kids why we were there. When they’d ask, “Why are we here, why we can’t have a normal life like other people have?” I struggled to answer.
 

Having a place to live has made us feel positive again, and the children have started to get their confidence back again.”

An important aspect of providing women with safe, decent and affordable homes through the Women in Safe Homes fund is that it empowers women to start making their own decisions, to make choices that they want to make.

“I started to feel that I can make decisions for myself and choose my own life again. I don’t have to worry if anyone gets angry at me for what I’m doing… Some things are still not easy but honestly this is the first time I’ve felt like I’m at home. I’d never felt like I had a home like I do now because when I was young my father was both physically and mentally abusive. Even when I left my parents, I faced more trouble with my partner. So I didn’t have a chance to like to being at home or to feel safe and relaxed.

Now I love staying at home. Even though it’s not always perfectly clean because of kids making lots of mess, I still feel that it’s our place and there’s nothing to worry about!”

Women who move into a Cyrenians’ home are not just provided with ‘a roof over their head’. They also have access to specialist support services to help them, for example, start their recovery from trauma, tackle mental health issues, help them build confidence and to live with independence, to find employment and build their financial resilience. And because women will often arrive at a property with very few of their own possessions, properties are furnished by Cyrenians – beds & bedlinen, kitchenware, white goods, sofas, groceries – to make them welcoming and homely and so that women can just move in without having an extra thing to worry about, especially the financial implications, and can just start to settle into their homes.

“The Cyrenians’ team helped us a lot – they gave us a sense of direction for starting a new life. For example, they helped me to find a gas and electric company, register for city tax, look for schools and will help me with my CV and find opportunities for me to gain work experience.

They even provided us with lots of food when we moved in as well so that we could find our feet before we found out where to go get groceries and other things we needed. The property is furnished perfectly, so we didn’t really need to do anything to start a new life.”

Now that Hana and her daughters are settling into their new home, Hana is starting to think about the sort of future she wants for her and her children:

“I always wanted my kids to have chances to learn if they want to. I think that living in Edinburgh is going to be a big advantage for their education. Having access to a good education is key to having a better life. Even though I didn’t have a great family history, learning has always helped give me more choices in life.

Even though I lived in Scotland with my husband, I’d never worked here, so I want to think about what I can do and get some advice where I can. Someday, I want to be like the people who helped me to get here, and I want to repay this country in some way.”

About the Women in Safe Homes fund 

The Women in Safe Homes fund is a gender-lens impact investment property fund helping address the housing crisis for women escaping domestic abuse, leaving the criminal justice system without a home to go to and at risk of or experiencing homelessness. It was launched in December 2020 as a joint venture of Resonance and Patron Capital because there is a chronic shortage of safe, decent and affordable housing for women at risk of and experiencing homelessness. 

In 2023, 1.4 million women in the UK experienced domestic abuse, one of the leading causes of women’s homelessness, with 70% of survivors having a housing need. 

The fund raised £29m from over twenty impact investors and has now closed, focusing on deployment, and has so far purchased 104 properties for its nine housing partners. So far, over 380 women and children have been housed by the fund.